Guild Wars 2 has the most well-crafted, thought-out game world I've ever experienced in an MMO to date. It is not the most technically impressive game graphically, but artistically it is easily in a class of its own. The vistas, which remind me a lot of Assassin's Creed's points where you can view a cityscape from high above, do an excellent job of highlighting some incredible scenery. It isn't very often when you're fighting in a swamp area and realize how cool it looks. Swamps are usually the worst, most visually depressing areas in RPGs. I have yet to enter a region I didn't like.

The dynamic events, as I told Kincard on Mumble last night, are like a major evolution of the campaign system in Final Fantasy XI. This became abundantly clear as I, along with hundreds of other players, would take control of various centaur outposts in the Harathi Hinterlands culminating into an epic final stand in their main fortress. I liked campaign a lot, and these dynamic events have much more complex scripting which means I love it tons.

The look of the game is something that I don't think enough of us pay attention to. Granted, it's hard to focus on aesthetics when we're wailing on some zone boss with fifty other people, but I certainly can't think of another MMORPG that gets the small details down perfectly. I can especially see it in the animation; the norn actually walk like small giants instead of large humans, with a slow, long stride and steady gait. The asura have this little forward stumble they do when they land a running jump. It's nothing that makes or breaks the game, but it shows the lengths ArenaNet went to to not only make a massive world with tons of things to do, but to make that world interesting down to the smallest minutiae.

Politics maybe? Guild armor sounds neat, and you can get backpacks and such too. I just want officer so I can claim stuff for the guild in WvW! Not that it matters right now I suppose since don't have much of anything unlocked, yet.

Game is great. Beautiful and fun, but dammit I'm always underleveled. Maybe it's because I don't have a profession to boost my xp, but I've been thinking about taking up jewelcrafting. I really haven't looked into crafting at all so I'm not sure.

Politics maybe? Guild armor sounds neat, and you can get backpacks and such too. I just want officer so I can claim stuff for the guild in WvW! Not that it matters right now I suppose since don't have much of anything unlocked, yet.

How much have you messed around with it? Sometimes turning down minor things like shadows can have a huge impact on performance. Turning down one thing might let you turn up 2 things somewhere else. Also I heard updated drivers were making a huge difference.

If you are underleveled, go to your home city and take an asura gate to Lion's Arch. From there, you can take an asura gate to any of the other four races' starter cities and begin leveling there.

In fact, you should explore the entirety of all six major cities. You get a ton of XP out of it, and there's a lot of cool stuff to see anyway.

Also in fact, if you're just now starting to craft, you'll probably need to do this anyway to get the mob drops necessary for damn near everything you make. Might as well get them while exploring new territory, IMO.

I notice a lot of people in the guild are not representing it, so they can't use guild chat or earn influence. I'm not sure if this is by choice or not, but in case you don't know, all you have to do is pull up the guild menu and hit represent. :)

Also in fact, if you're just now starting to craft, you'll probably need to do this anyway to get the mob drops necessary for damn near everything you make. Might as well get them while exploring new territory, IMO.

For the most part I kept all the claws, beaks, and such that dropped in my collectible tab. I am, however, having to go back to chop wood and mine gold. Not something I find particularly fun, so mixing your idea with Parn's is a great idea.

I ended up taking Jewel crafting and Artifice as my two professions. Seems alright. I like that you can discover new recipes by just trying new shit and seeing what works. That's pretty cool.